Left Wing Nationalists

"I am just an ordinary Communist who has worked for Chairman Mao as a secretary for many years. My work principally has concerned international problems. I am a sort of roving sentry in the field of culture and education. What I have been doing is to subscribe to some magazines and newspapers, to leaf through them, and to pick out materials which I think noteworthy, including positive and negative materials. I finally submit them to Chairman Mao for reference. Generally speaking, my work has been carried out in this way for many years."

"Sex is engaging in the first rounds. What sustains interest in the long run is political power."

"Though Mao hated her, Jiang remained powerful. On his death in 1976, his successor Deng ended her ascendancy and arrested Madame Mao in a palace coup. In 1981 Jiang was found guilty of 'counter-revolutionary' crimes. Her death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment but she committed suicide in 1991. A hated figure, she was described by one biographer as a 'vicious woman who helped dispose of many people'; the 'white-boned demon' who, in her own words (when on trial), was 'Chairman Mao’s dog. Whomever he asked me to bite, I bit.'"

"In 1966, however, Mao appointed her deputy director of the Cultural Revolution, a vast revolutionary terror, in partnership with Zhang Chungiao (a one-time journalist), Yao Wenyuan (a literary critic) and Wang Hongwen (a former security guard) — the so-called Gang of Four. She zealously directed the repression, manipulated by Mao. Her call for radical forms of expression, instilled with 'ideologically correct' subject matter, escalated into an all-out assault on the existing artistic and intellectual elites. Renowned for her inflammatory rhetoric, she manipulated mass communication techniques to whip young Revolutionary Guards into a frenzy before sending them out to attack — verbally and physically — anything 'bourgeois' or 'reactionary'. In an orgy of denunciation, terror and murder, the Communist Party, including moderates like President Liu Shaogqi and General Secretary Deng Xiaoping, was purged, The real victims were ordinary citizens — around three million of whom were killed white countless others were imprisoned or brutalized."

"The 20th century produced a communist equivalent of the figure of Empress Wu, in the form of Jiang Qing, a.k.a. ‘Madame Mao’, ambitious, ruthless and dogmatic. An only child and the daughter of a concubine, Jiang became an actress after leaving university, acquiring an enduring belief in the importance of the arts. In the late 1930s, however, she met Mao Zedong, future founder of the People’s Republic of China, after joining the Communist side in China’s civil war, becoming his fourth and final wife in 1939 (see page 264). Since Mao was still married at the time, she had to keep a low profile for many years."

"More significant than developments in the Middle East, the death of Mao Zedong in September 1976 was not followed by any abandonment of China’s American alignment. As so often during the Cold War, rivalries within Communist parties played a major role in international developments. The attempt by the radical ‘Gang of Four’, including Mao’s widow, to gain power was thwarted by Hua Guofeng, the Premier, who became Chairman of the Central Committee. He, in turn, became less powerful as his rival, Deng Xiaoping, rose. Deng had been dismissed as Vice-Premier of the State Council earlier in 1976 as a result of the influence of the Gang of Four. Deng was reinstated in July 1977 and, while supporting control by the Communist Party, outmanoeuvred the more ideological Hua by emphasising pragmatism. Deng’s leadership was confirmed in December 1978 at the Third Plenum of the 11th CCP Congress. He remained in power until 1997."

"For many years, Chairman Mao has repeatedly instructed us. We should unite with the absolute majority, with the more than 95 percent of the people of the whole country. After the editor's note of the September 5 issue, our comrades should think about this question. After distinguishing right from wrong, we should consolidate more than 95 percent of the working class. The working class also fights! Do not think that you do not fight! You have fought enough, and have worked out the great alliance and revolutionary three-in-one combination before you moved into the schools. Otherwise, you would still have to fight. Consolidate over 95 percent of the poor and lower-middle peasants; consolidate over 95 percent of armed forces—the P.L.A."

"I was Chairman Mao's dog. Whomever he told me to bite, I bit."

"Because of the nature of my work and because I was suffering from a grave ailment, my doctors advised me to take part in cultural activities to improve the balance of my sense of hearing and sense of sight. Thus, I came into contact with some literature and art."

"I am only a small screw. The working class has stepped onto the stage of struggle-criticism-transformation of the superstructure. In fact, the working class had already stepped onto the political stage in 1964 on the literary line. This was an epoch-making achievement in the international Communist movement as well as a tremendous contribution of our great leader Chairman Mao to Marxist-Leninism."

"Comrades, to do some good for the people is the duty of a Communist. If one has done something wrong, one must sincerely correct one's mistakes. If something has been achieved, the achievement should be attributed to our great leader Chairman Mao, the Party Central, the Central Cultural Revolution Group, the broad masses of the revolutionary people, and the Red Guard little generals."

"I am an ordinary Communist, a little pupil of Chairman Mao, and a little pupil of the broad masses. I have to learn from my dear comrades."

"There is a question of popularization versus elevation. Some one just said that we should organize small detachments and send them down to produce fragments and minor items for the viewing of workers, peasants and soldiers. This of course can be done. But, the central task now is still to combat self-interest and repudiate revisionism, and to organize the revolutionary troops."

"We should be steady, accurate and harsh — towards our enemy; towards ourselves we should not wage civil war all the time, nor should we wage civil war all the time against our friends. If we engage in civil war, we are apt to be exploited by the enemy; sometimes the enemy manipulates behind the scenes so that wage civil war, then he takes the opportunity to sneak away. You should recognize this trick."

"To carry on the great revolutionary alliance, all organizations should conduct more self-criticisms, and conduct more investigations and studies and self-criticisms in one's own organization. This would facilitate the alliance. Otherwise, the enemy can easily exploit our weaknesses."

"The establishment of troops in the cultural circles has this problem: the class element is relatively complicated. But, while a person cannot decide his own origin, his performance and attitude still count."

"I feel very sorry that for a very long time I have not had hearings of opinions of comrades. I can well understand it if comrades should have some opinion against us; for comrades know about our conditions."

"Finally, I want to briefly talk about the education of our children. We should not treat our children as our private property; we must treat them as the wealth of the people, the descendants of the people. If one treasures one's own children as the treasures of heaven, he inevitably ignores children of other people, the children of the working class, and views them as if they were nothing. This is very wrong. People with such an attitude are only a minority; the majority of the people are not like that."

"For the past 17 years, there have been some good or comparatively good literary works which reflect the life of workers, peasants, and soldiers. Most literary works however, can be classified either as famous works, foreign works, or classics, which present a distorted image of the workers, peasants, and soldiers. In regards to education, almost all were of that kind. In addition to that, they added some views of Soviet revisionists. Thus we nurtured some youthful but old-fashioned artists in our literary and art circles."

"Moreover, I wish to remind our comrades of the importance of the cultural and educational front. As far as this problem is concerned, our past knowledge was insufficient. We placed all the questionable and not especially capable cadres in positions of the cultural and educational front, which does not include the millions of intelligentsia we have absorbed. Consequently, there was a proliferation of bourgeois and feudal materials. We weren't quite aware of the situation then, nor were we aware of its awesome effects."

"Indeed, if we compare the United States with us, the American empire is hundreds, even thousands of times stronger than us in terms of economy, quantity and quality of weapons and military equipment, when the war just started. But America is absolutely weaker than us in politics, culture, and at the same time inferior to us in science and military art."

"Currently, the American imperialists are still planning to intensify and expand the war in order to recover from their current situation, which is one of defeat and stalemate. However, they also are eager for us to sit down with them at the negotiating table so that they can force us to make concessions. As for our side, we believe we cannot sit down at the table until we have caused the puppet army to disintegrate and until we have crushed the American imperialist will to commit aggression. This is very secret, and we have not yet advised any of the fraternal communist] parties of our position on this matter."

"Our party has concluded that the world revolution is now in an offensive position, and our party advocates an intensification of the revolution’s attacks against imperialism, which is led by the American imperialists, in order to maintain world peace and to push back, one step at a time, and overthrow individual components of world imperialism so that we can achieve victory for the world proletarian revolution."

"Our party’s experiences and our revolutionary realities have demonstrated that whenever we firmly maintain a spirit of independence and self-reliance we are able to be creative in our development of policies and directions, and we achieve success."

"Today, with boundless joy, throughout the country our 45 million people are jubilantly celebrating the great victory we have won in the central offensive and uprising this Spring of 1975, in completely defeating the war of aggression and the neo-colonialist rule of US imperialism, liberating the whole of the southern half of our country so dear to our hearts, and gloriously ending the longest, most difficult and greatest patriotic war ever waged in the history of our peoples' struggle against foreign aggression."

"We hail our glorious fatherland from now on definitively rid of the slavery of foreign domination and the scourge of partition. We hail the beautiful land of Vietnam from Lạng Sơn to the Cape of Cà Mau, from now on completely in­dependent and free, and independent and free forever."

"We hail the new era in our nation's 4,000 year history - an era of brilliant prospects for the development of a peaceful, independent, reunified, democratic, prosperous and strong Vietnam, an era in which the labour in people have become the complete masters of their destiny and will pool their physical and mental efforts to build a plentiful and happy life for themselves and for thousands of generations to come."

"We won against the US because our party had a correct and creative revolutionary line, and method. The revolutionary line is to raise the two banners of national independence and socialism. That is the source of all the strength of our revolution. That is also the truth, the power of the times. The revolutionary method is to apply an offensive strategy and know how to win step by step. With that line and method, our party and people have magnified the combined forces of our whole country and combined the forces of the Vietnamese revolution with the revolutionary forces of the new era, creating a powerful force. Synthesize the power of America and its minions on the battlefield to defeat them."

"The comprehensive cooperation relationship and the help of the Soviet Union, other countries in the socialist community, as well as the two brothers Laos and Cambodia, create favorable conditions for us to strive to overcome difficulties in the future. But here, the decisive factor is still the strong efforts of our people."

"In the field of socialist revolution, party building work must be associated with the renovation and economic construction, cultural renovation and development. The strengthening of ideological and political work, organization and inspection work must be really associated with the productive labor movement, with striving for the implementation of economic and social plans."

"Unlike the leaders of Iraq or Argentina, Vietnamese leaders Ho Chi Minh and Le Duan made decisions cautiously and shrewdly, using force only after lengthy internal debate. Their approach paid off: the United States withdrew in 1973, and Vietnam was reunified in 1975. It was a stunning defeat for the democratic side, and Le Duan’s reward for the victory was a long career as ruler of a united Vietnam."

"It is not objectively necessary to establish a political mechanism of pluralism and multiparty government. Socialism is the only right decision."

"The question is not to beg to the foreign capitalists but to manage and work out policies which are more beneficial to the domestic economy. I hope that in the future, Vietnam will look for every measure to make our international relations equal."

"The reality has proven that in the struggle between the new and the old, progressive and the backward, and appropriate law, vitality often appears at the grassroots in the most difficult and complicated places."

"We want to forget the past, forget that under several American Presidents we were engaged in a brutal war we did not start. We would like to see the U.S. embargo lifted and the two sides sit down and talk over the problems that are left from the war -- problems like both sides cooperating to find the remains of Americans missing in action. We want the Amerasians, all of them, to go to America, if the father wants his child. If the Vietnamese mother wants to go, she will be allowed to go. There is no interest, none, for either country to maintain a gap between us. Step by step, we should move to restore diplomatic relations. Let us put the war behind us and work for a peaceful future."

"We faced difficulties created by the ravages of 40 years of war. Afterward, we made costly mistakes in our effort to rebuild the country. Now we know the mistakes and their price. We were too hasty, too simplistic, too subjective. We tried to build socialism without going through the necessary period of capitalist development. Today we are correcting those mistakes with a profound and thorough renovation. A policy has already begun that wipes out a centralized bureaucracy based on state subsidies that caused our people suffering."

"We want to broaden economic cooperation with all countries, socialist or capitalist, on the basis of mutual benefits and without political conditions. International trade is important to our future, especially with our neighbors and with Japan. Many private companies have already established economic ties with Viet Nam. We want to see those expand. I believe we are moving in the direction of the economic integration of Southeast Asia."

"We must fight for one Arab nation, for unity, for freedom, for socialism. We must defeat enemy number one, America, the supplier of Hawk missiles to Israel, and we must seize our own oil resources. We must learn to emulate our Algerian brethren in order to liberate Palestine. Long live Palestine, Arab and revolutionary!"

"In 1969, Wadie Haddad asked me if I was ready to die, and I said yes. He then asked if I was ready for imprisonment, to which I said that we entered this path knowing the risks and there are already many of our Palestinian comrades in prisons due to military operations. I understood what it meant to be imprisoned by the occupation. Then he went on to ask me if I was ready to hijack a plane."

"Now there are no more secrets. Everything is exposed, both audio and video, and no matter how much the Western media tries to spread misinformation and illusions, it will not be able to cover the image."

"Now Israel wants to say that they are attacking Hamas, but the children are not Hamas, women are not Hamas. They are attacking our people, and it’s a genocide attack this time."

"I apologized to the passengers. We didn’t hurt anyone. The passengers were all released and went back to their homes - but we didn’t go back to our homes. I didn’t care if I was the first woman hijacking a plane or not, I just wanted to do something for our cause."

"I never had a whole pencil, always half. My mother used to cut it into two so every child could go to school."

"I am a freedom fighter, whatever that means or whatever the media that is controlled by Zionism and the imperialists say. They can give us or label us whatever they want. I say occupation is terrorism. Zionism is terrorism. Imperialists are terrorists. They are the ones who create wars against the people of the world. I don’t know what they label us, but I know myself as a part of my people’s struggle as a freedom fighter."

"We don’t care about being Christian or Muslim or Jews. This is about the rights of people. We’re not targeting Jews. We are targeting occupants."

"There’s a fundamental equation: where there is occupation, there is resistance. Nobody can change this. This is basic, it’s natural; you cannot change the sun and make it rise from the west. This is the truth; it is natural. When you are under oppression, you resist."

"The leadership chose to go for the Oslo Accords [in 1991], thinking that this was a step forward in achieving the main rights of the Palestinians. Some people believed this, but they discovered, after twenty years, that it was nonsense. It brought catastrophe on us. There are more settlements than ever, twice more than before Oslo, the number of settlers has doubled, more land is being confiscated, and, of course, the Wall has been built. The apartheid wall. Israel is an apartheid state."

"I'll explain why the plane was hijacked. We had to, to get attention so that the world would understand our cause. We weren't refugees who were satisfied with aid. It wasn't a natural disaster that made us refugees. We captured the planes to ask the world a question. Who are the Palestinians?"

"When we hijacked the planes the whole world wondered who we were. Regardless of what they thought about it, they wondered. But when we were tortured in lsraeli prisons, who heard our screams? We had to do what we did in order to get your attention. Our people suffered in Justice. No sound person accepts that! No one."

"Who decides and defines what terrorism is? As far as I'm concerned, occupation is terrorism. My people and I have a right to fight it. I don't care what others call it. People have a right to fight those who occupy their country by all means possible including weapons. That's what it says in the UN declaration."